HomePod (mini) woes with default and experimental audio drivers

What is the issue?

Pausing a video (live or recording) within the first few seconds of starting the stream results in the audio never pausing, or pausing significantly after. The video pauses but the audio continues. If I play/pause again it seems to be ok.

I'm seeing the same on both HomePod Minis and OG HomePods. If I pause a stream the video stops immediately but the audio continues to play for 5 secs or so. When I unpause the audio picks up where is stopped (after the 5 secs or so) and the video seems to FFWD until it aligns with the audio.

Otherwise, in very limited testing this seems much better so far.

I should add that starting or stopping a stream works as expected with no delay while waiting for the buffer to drain.

Confirmed bug with pause. Fix is uploading now.

New build is up. LMK how it goes.

Looks good so far. Pause works as expected now.

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That bug is fixed! Thanks.

Here's a new one: I started playing a virtual channel with 4K HDR movies and got about 1 second of audio before it cut out completely. Pausing/playing again didn't help. I switched to another virtual channel and the same thing happened -- it might be related to either HDR or frame rate switching? I submitted diagnostics.

Does seeking help when it cuts out?

Seeking gives me another 1-2 seconds of audio and then it cuts out again.

Okay I was able to reproduce. Happens with any long recording. We had some code to fix this before, but I thought maybe that was causing other problems. I will add it back now and upload a new build shortly.

Try this one:

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I think this does it! Fixed. I'll keep testing but after a few hours of mixed usage (imports, in-progress recordings, live TV), everything seems great with audio. Now I can start complaining about the experimental video driver in another thread :joy:

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Overall these fixes are working very well. One thing I am seeing is random crashes within the app since these changes. I'm not sure if they're related or not but I have not seen a crash yet on a TV using native TV speakers.

I've submitted diagnostics. I believe twice yesterday and again about 5 minutes ago.

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Agreed. This appears to fix the audio issues. However, like @johnluber, I am experiencing the random app crashes.

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Came here today regarding crashes as well. I’ve been experiencing random crashes at least a few days now. I’ve my TV audio routed through just a Blu-ray system. Haven’t been on the downstairs TV, which utilizes two HomePod mini’s for a coupla weeks, so I can’t comment on that configuration.

Default Audio Driver, btw.

I'm going to mark this as resolved since I've had several days without audio issues now! If anyone else here is experiencing crashes I recommend you post to this topic since it's pinned.

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Getting major audio lag on ATV with this newest test build. Flipping back to stable client immediately fixes.

These are new and different issues, as my setup is still working perfectly well with a HomePod mini pair on the latest beta. If you still have issues I'd post here: BETA: Audio improvements for Apple TV and iPhone/iPad

Sorry yes - that will teach me to trying this haphazardly from my iPhone 🥸

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